Nineteen Days
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: "He didn't tell you, did he?"
1. Day One

**A/N: I've really gotten onto this idea. I couldn't get it out of my head once I thought of it. I know, I'm starting another series, but I can't help it. I like this idea too much. It's all going to be in Gwen's POV.**

**Disclaimer: Man of Action owns Ben 10.**

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_January 25, 2011_  
_6:29 P.M._

_Day One_

_I think my heart broke today. I'm really scared for a ton of reasons. I'm not sure exactly what all's going on right now. With Kevin. With me. I'm really scared. I want to be afraid, but I don't want to be at the same time. I know the general statistics and all and I'm hating every second of it._

_Here's generally what happened, in short at least._

_Kevin didn't show up. Again. Ben and I went out to take on the Forever Knights, being irritating nuisances again. I'm still not sure why they won't just give up when we slaughter them every time, but that's another story._

_I was upset, definitely. No questions asked about that. Kevin isn't supposed to let us down. He's a teammate and a friend, not to mention my boyfriend. He hasn't called. He didn't leave me any messages. I didn't get a reason why he didn't come. It made me mad so I took it up with his mom. I called his house, which I hardly ever do because he's never even there most of the time, and she picked up perky as ever._

_As soon as she knew it was me, she was almost automatically talking about how much Kevin talks about me and such. He said a lot about me. She thinks he loves me. That's all that really matters, but this was the zinger._

_When I brought up how he didn't show up today, she went silent. It was a long time. I asked if she was still there and she said she was. I kind of let her stay quiet for a while. Then she finally said something that made my heart stop in my chest._

_I swear it broke. I swear I don't know how in the world I'm going to make it through these nineteen days. I mean, I'm already miserable and it's only day one. I decided to chronologically order all this so that maybe one day someone can figure out what happened and help someone else out there. Why? Because I think it'd help and Kevin would want it that way. He's like that, but no one would be able to tell behind all that bad boy stuff he puts up as a front._

_So… Kevin didn't show. He didn't pick us up. Never called. Never said anything to us. We had hardly seen him for weeks. And I thought it was getting ridiculous because he would email me, but he wouldn't return my calls. And he would text. It bothered me and I was just thinking "Seriously? You won't call me back? Did I do something wrong?" He was still responding like he normally would. Kevin was playful and such. I knew he was just teasing me and that was fine by me. I liked it because it was him. If it was Ben, I would've knocked his block off. Not like that would do any good. It wouldn't matter. But if Kevin read this, he'd love to see me say that. He loves bothering Ben almost as much as he loves bothering me._

_Are you getting this? He wasn't talking to me. Why? Oh, his reasoning broke me. I wanted to curl up and die. The worst part was that he hadn't even said it to my face. That really bothered me. I had to hear it from his mom. It was… it was annoying. It was really annoying._

_"He didn't tell you, did he?" Kevin's mom sounded so innocent and so vulnerable when she said that. I could just imagine some sort of heartbroken face on her usually cheerful features. It hurt just to think of his mother sad. She was never supposed to sound sad. It was her. She wasn't supposed to be sad. It wasn't right._

_She just told me one simple thing and my whole world fell apart like a book tearing at the seams. Maybe this'll help someone some day. I'm hoping it will. Because maybe me writing out this sequence of events will let someone else explain a solution that had previously escaped me. But I have eighteen days left, right? As long as Kevin decides to talk to me again. Or at least acknowledge my existence._

"_Sweetie, Kevin has cancer." _

_That was the perfect way to ruin my already miserable day. To know that my boyfriend only had nineteen days to live, eighteen as of tomorrow._

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**A/N: Next chapter will be longer. This was intro. I really just wanted to get it down. So… yeah. Reviews are greatly appreciated.**

**~Sky**


	2. Day Two

**A/N: I guess my mind has been somewhat warped by this idea… JUST SAW THE NEW TRAILER FOR "The Transmogrification of Eunice"! Sunder! GAH! Kevin had fishing rods! And he was with Gwen! And he was wearing his garage clothes again! YAY! He should really stop looking so emo all the time… Anyways, back to the story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10.**

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_January 26, 2011_  
_3:34 P.M._

_Day Two_

_I'm not sure how to approach him. I want to talk to Kevin. My head is screaming for me to talk to him. I want to call him, but I know he won't pick up. He won't talk to me. I figure he's got something wrong with his voice and that's why he won't come anywhere near Ben or I._

_His mom said it was thyroid cancer. I'm not a doctor or anything, but I've figured out enough to know that his voice is affected by it. That's why he won't talk to me. And I'm thinking about calling him. I'm thinking that I should definitely call him and ask him what's up and just tell him that I know._

_If I tell him that I know, then what am I going to say? And the thing is, I don't want to just text him: it's impersonal. I want to talk to him. Face-to-face. And if he doesn't want to see me, then I'd at least be willing to call him. Anything to hear him and anything to let him know that I know. I just don't want to leave it hanging there._

_Does Ben know? I love my cousin, but if Kevin kept it from me, why on Earth would he ever tell Ben? I'm still hurt that he didn't tell me, but I'm dealing with that as it comes. I can manage the idea of knowing that he's going to die in a matter of days because I guess we kind of faced that danger since the beginning. I was just having a problem with knowing that he didn't tell me something as important as this._

_Earlier, I did my research and found out a lot of stuff. The statistics… They're not good. I know Kevin is a powerful guy. He's an Osmosian and he's one of the strongest people I know, physically and emotionally. Kevin was the only person I figured who could do almost anything and get by with it because he wasn't afraid of anything. Kevin is fearless and I love him for that._

_I think I finally found his fear. I finally figured out that he was afraid of something. Showing weakness. And he was at his weakest right now._

_He needed me. I hated knowing that I couldn't help him and that he wouldn't give me a chance to do anything to help him. I have magic if science fails. The worst part is that he won't go to science either. Kevin is big on technology, but the hard part about his heritage is that it prevents any of us from going into real medical places and not getting analyzed like freaks. Kevin's already got bad experiences with being called a freak and I know he would never go back to it._

_I guess I should probably call him. I'll write more later. I'm going over to his house. I don't want to… I don't want to mess with him and hurt him more. I have to talk to him. I'll write later. I'm going over to his house._

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_January 26, 2011  
__9:09 P.M._

_Day Two_

_I met with him. He… He wasn't good. His voice… I understand why he wasn't talking to me now. I get it. Apparently, it's bad. The way his DNA is altered with his dad's powers and such, it all grows twice as fast due to the fact of being Osmosian. He's already done his research and his work. He knows he's only got seventeen days left after he falls asleep tonight._

_Kevin… he cried today. It broke my heart. I went into his room where he was flipping through some books on cars and he didn't know that I was there for a few seconds until I sat on the edge of his bed and then he just looked at me with those dark eyes… Then he just broke._

_I have never truly seen Kevin broken before. I've seen him cry over money, but I figured it was just kind of a Kevin thing to do that. This time… It was more… It was real. He was really going down. For some reason, it shattered all the little pieces of my heart into even tinier pieces._

_He told me after he settled down. We were curled up on the edge of his bed, him tucked against me like a small child that needed comfort. He figured I already knew since I was there and that was a start. Kevin just started to say what was going on and why he wasn't talking to me. He avoided most of the basic points, beating around the bush of the topic, but I knew and that was what mattered most of the time._

_It's late now and I still haven't called Ben. Kevin's fine with me telling him because he doesn't want to get all broken again in front of Ben. Kevin's biggest fear was showing fear. I guess that was why he didn't want to face me with things. But avoiding me cost us precious time…_

_I just dealt with it, you know? I managed not to cry in front of Kevin. It was hard, but I had to let him know I was there and things and… Wow, it's hard. I feel so empty. He knows, I know, Ben doesn't know. It's like some sort of cycle that makes me feel so neglected with all these things. Just the way he left me in the dark for so long… I didn't want to be in the dark…_

_Kevin told me that he figured it out when he got really sick. He fixed it a little bit, but not enough that it wasn't noticeable how bad things really were. Kevin has a really bad tendency to keep things in hiding until it's needed. And it was needed a little while ago and he still kept all his deepest darkest problems hidden because he wasn't about to show fear or weakness._

_I guess we stopped after a while. We just got quiet and we had that moment where you feel like everything's going to break down. It was in that moment that Kevin was holding me instead of me holding him. He just told me one thing. And I swear, it only made things harder._

"_I'll be fine, Gwen."_

_We both knew it was the biggest lie he had ever told._

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**A/N: Ouch. Okay. So review please.**

**~Sky**


	3. Day Three

**A/N: Okay, we're buried alive here. I'm not even sure if we'll be able to get out of the house for a few days… And the roof's leaking. Um, I'm a little worried here… Snow and I don't mix too good…**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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_January 27, 2011  
__9:23 P.M._

_Day Three_

_I told Ben today. He thought it was some kind of stupid joke. He was smiling about it for like ten minutes, and he was actually laughing for a little while in the beginning. Then, while he was laughing, all those pent up tears from yesterday broke the dam that had been holding them back and I started crying. All out bawling my eyes out. It was embarassing, but I was glad it was in front of Ben instead of in front of Kevin. I didn't want to break in front of Kevin. I had to be strong for him._

_After that, Ben took me very, very seriously._

_We were talking and he was a bit of a mess for a while. Ben never really had a brother and Kevin was the first real best friend he'd ever had that was worth something. I guess it hit him hard when he realized he was going to lose his best friend. Especially in such a tragic way... It broke my heart to think that Ben would have no one to torment him or to laugh at his lame jokes or to watch football with._

_It kind of hurt me to see Ben so broken. Sure, he was always sad about something, but this time he looked like he was just going to shatter at any second beneath the crushing force of knowing Kevin only had sixteen days to live after today. I mean, I know Ben as one of the bravest people in the history of the world. He's fought Highbreeds and Vilgax and Aggregor and won every single time, but he seemed so tiny and fragile after I told him he was going to lose Kevin._

_I was with Ben most of the day, but I was over with Kevin for a few hours too. They didn't really want to talk, so I was shuffling between the two in Ben's car. I wanted to spend time with Kevin before… you know, but I didn't want to leave Ben all alone to be miserable either. He was losing his best friend, for crying out loud. And they wouldn't get anywhere near each other, Kevin not wanting to show a sign of weakness and Ben just wanted to wake up from this never ending nightmare. He was hoping he'd wake up any second and find whipped cream all over his face._

_This whole thing felt like a bad nightmare to me too. I sort of knew what Ben was going through. I didn't want to believe it either and if Ben had told me, I'd think it was some sort of sick joke too. But Kevin's mom broke it to me and I knew she would never lie about something as serious as that._

_When I was with Kevin today, he seemed brighter. He coughed a lot more and he generally didn't look good, being pale as a ghost and all, but his eyes were brighter. I think I was the reason for that though. He didn't look so small today either. He almost looked hopeful, like I was some sort of magic cure or something._

_Speaking of magic, I went through a couple of spell books and came up with absolutely, positively nothing that could fix him. I'm planning on breaking into Charmcaster and Hex's library again to see if I could fix him or at least give him more time, but that would take time away from Kevin…I was torn._

_Some part of me wanted to fix Kevin, to be able to save him. Some part of me wanted him to fix himself, like I knew that something inside of him was set right so that he could repair what damage had been done._

_The science behind this sudden appearance of his thyroid cancer is that his cells divide twice as fast as normal people like Ben and I. Well, mostly like Ben. I have Anodite on my side and all. But Kevin's Osmosian side had given him more of the superhuman strength as a human that only doubled when he had his armor over his skin. Absorbing things only made his cells work faster because he lost so many of them just by armoring up. And somewhere along the line, between having the electricity in his system and being exposed to radiation so many times, some part of his DNA got messed up and he got cancer. Add in the cells going through mitosis twice as much and the cancer was prone to being twice as dangerous. Then there was the factor of him not being able to ever go to any true medical practice to get looked at and it was caught later instead of sooner._

_Overall, things weren't looking good for Kevin whether my magic was involved or not. He probably would've been fine if he just hadn't been part Osmosian… Then he would've been fine and maybe he'd have more than sixteen days to live._

_Tomorrow, I'm thinking about going over to his house with Ben and maybe we could brainstorm (it's not meant to be funny) some ideas on how to at least attempt to cure him; if we can't cure him, I'd like to at least try to slow down the process so that I can have a little more time with him. Anything just to get a few more minutes with my precious Kevin…I don't want him to go yet. I love him too much to let him go so easily._

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**A/N: Wow. Okay, that was painful to write. Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks a ton for reading.**

**~Sky**


	4. Day Four

**A/N: I'm getting back on top of my game. Hopefully I'll be able to get a lot more done before 'Sym-bionic Titan' tonight…**

**Disclaimer: Don't own.**

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_January 28, 2011_  
_4:39 P.M._

_Day Four_

_Kevin said I couldn't come over today like I was originally planning. He said it was really bad today. He said he was worse today. But he said it had been alternating between good and bad for a while. It was like he could sometimes control how bad it was, but he said that it was really bad today._

_And I know what you're thinking: "How did he say it if you haven't seen him?" We've been instant messaging almost all day. And when his mom said that the computer was rotting his brain, he picked up a book and grabbed his phone and that was that. We've been texting for the past two hours._

_But since he's busy putting away some dishes and won't message me back for a few more minutes, I decided to put a little bit more into this journal. I'm keeping it updated everyday just so we can catalog what's going on with Kevin. Ben and Kevin still don't know that I'm doing this. I hope they won't mind. Ben clearly won't, but Kevin's a bit touchy on the subject on his cancer. He's not happy with it._

_Kevin's pretty much denying the whole thing. He's living life like he does every other day, except he's staying cooped up in his house all day, coughing his lungs out. He's not really acknowledging it too much. He knows his life's on a timer, but he hasn't actually said the word yet. We both know it's coming. He's just not in the mood to pay attention to it. He's being ignorant._

_Honestly, I'm okay with him ignoring everything. He deserves to live in denial while he still can. I'll let him keep thinking he'll see the light of another day by the end of this now fifteen-day period after today. It was getting bad, and we were wasting precious time. I don't want him thinking every single day that he's just sitting on a deathbed and waiting to fade into dust._

_Kevin just texted me back. He says the worst of his symptoms are clearing up pretty good. I could tell he was seriously bad earlier because when we were messaging, his grammar and spelling were worse than normal. And trust me, his education was good, but Kevin was never capable of using it to his full potential. His grammar is bad, but it's worse when he's sick. When he coughs, he's virtually blind and only focused on trying to breathe again. He said I could probably come over._

_It also surprised me because he told me to bring Ben. Which is… weird. They're like brothers, sure, but not once has Kevin ever wanted to hang out with Ben just because he could. Maybe once or twice, but it was such a rare occurrence that I was ever told that they were hanging out without me. For Ben and I, we can hang out whenever we want because we're cousins and such. Kevin and I, no duh, we can hang out whenever. But the guys? Together? It's either a war zone or some mini party. Depends on if they're behaving or not. So I've never known them to actually hang out without me around… It's just strange, I guess._

_I'll write more later today. Probably tonight. Anyways, I'm going over to Kevin's. I'll bring my laptop to start brainstorming stuff, so maybe I'll write more over there. Maybe._

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_January 28, 2011  
__6:56 P.M._

_Day Four_

_Ben and I have been at Kevin's house for a while now. It took Ben long enough to get me over here. Apparently, Sumo Slammers was having _another _stupid marathon. Dumb show… My cousin has better things to do than watch a couple of fat guys go at it in a wrestling ring. Things like, oh I don't know, save the world, maybe? Yeah, just maybe._

_Kevin's still coughing. A lot. I'm kind of worried that he's worse than we think he is. He could be lying, but his mom told me how he had nineteen days, so I'm counting everything down to the time. He's relaxing now, watching a little Sumo Slammers with Ben while I write some stuff and do my research. Kevin's already done his and he's seriously not looking good right now._

_Kevin's really pale. I mean, he's pale to begin with, anyone can tell that, but he's as white as a ghost now. I'm getting really worried. He's getting worse every day and I can tell. I love him and that's enough to be able to tell that he's not good. I'm not stupid and I know he's not doing good. That's what I get for being so close to him._

_I'm working on my research now, even though I've already done it. I'm just doing it to make Kevin happy. Every few seconds, when he thinks I'm not looking, those beautifully dark eyes will flit to me for a few seconds and a tiny smile passes across those thin, pale lips and I can't help but feel horrible for him. He's already been through so much… He doesn't need this suffering. He doesn't need any of this. He just needs to be able to go to sleep at night and not have to count the hours before he'll be gone from this world forever and be into the next, if one exists for him anyways. The way Kevin is… him dying kind of worries me more than it should._

_Ben says the marathon's over and that we should go back to our brainstorming. So far, we haven't gotten anything. We've been shooting off ideas, or at least Ben and I have been, and Kevin's just sitting there and staring out the window, oblivious to everything. I'm almost thinking he's being totally ignorant of all this. It's like he's completely ignoring everything. He's not listening to us. Ben and I are just talking to ourselves and he's sitting up on the couch, head turned away, eyes not even on me._

_We're only trying to help, but how are we supposed to help if he won't let us do anything for us?_

_Ben's telling me to write some of this stuff down. I'll just write it here since it's part of the process and all. I mean, this journal is what I'm keeping for the future. And maybe something he says might work. How am I supposed to know? If this helps anyone else out there, I'd rather be writing it down like engineers do than to completely ignore everything that sounds dumb._

_So Ben said we could try and incubate him. Kevin was oblivious to this and I'm personally not a big fan of sticking Kevin into a giant oven. In my opinion, it's dumb, but whatever._

_And now he wants to freeze him… Sometimes, my cousin is an idiot. But it almost makes sense. Freeze him until we find a cure so that we have more time… But I'm not freezing my boyfriend. And again, Kevin is impassive. No big shock there._

_I just suggested that we try and give him our own sort of radiation. Maybe Ben's got an alien for it or whatever. It'd be like chemo or something, but not exactly. I mean, I could do my research on chemotherapy and all. It wouldn't be hard, right?_

_Ben just went through the Ultimatrix. He said he couldn't find anything without getting Azmuth to unlock the whole master control thing. Which actually wouldn't be hard if we had someone who could fly us to Galvan Mark 2. Kevin's our pilot and if he couldn't hardly text me, there was no way he'd be able to get us to Azmuth. I could teleport us, but not without getting a serious teleportation hangover. I'd be screwed for a few more days, leaving us stranded there and I didn't want to keep Kevin away from his mom when we were just counting down the days._

_Go figure, Kevin again doesn't care._

_I'll just go now because apparently another Sumo Slammers marathon is on another channel and Ben's going to turn that on. Kevin just stalked off to his room and I'm not about to leave him alone for too awfully long. I don't want him to waste the time that he has left._

_Write again tomorrow._

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**A/N: I hope that was a good update for you guys. Please review and I'll update again soon!**

**~Sky**


	5. Day Five

**A/N: Needed to update.**

**Disclaimer: Doesn't own.**

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_January 29, 2011  
__8: 55 A.M._

_Day Five_

_So we're still brainstorming. It's hard. Yesterday, Kevin and I… we got a little heated back in his room._

_He's dying on the inside and I know that he only has a little bit of time left. It's killing me. It really is. I don't want to see him fall apart like this. It hurts so bad to know that he's breaking down emotionally, mentally, physically… Kevin's so broken…_

_I hate seeing him like this. He's so hurt on the inside. I know Kevin and I know he's got way too much to live for. He's got a steady job now with the garage and the Plumbers and he's actually gained the trust of so many people that it'll be sad to see him fall with so many new friends._

_The way Kevin is just always smiling and it's hard to tell what he's really thinking behind those dark eyes and the way he just looks so hopeful… He's so damn hopeful…_

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_January 29, 2011  
__10: 21 A.M._

_Day Five_

_Sorry for the lapse there. I had to cry. I didn't want to break right in the middle of writing, but I had to cry. It hurts so much to think of him being so broken and still wearing that same smile every day like nothing could ever go wrong. He just seems peaceful with everything… He's broken… But if you didn't know him the way I did, you wouldn't notice anything wrong with him. He's got such a sweet smile… No one would be able to notice if he was hurt…_

_Anyways, back on topic of… yesterday…_

_Kevin was so good to me. He was actually doing pretty good for having been so sick. We started with a kiss and from there… We got really close to totally losing ourselves._

_I'm just going to say that I wouldn't have been afraid to totally lose myself to Kevin. He's dying for god's sake. What am I going to do? I'm losing the only guy I'll ever love… I'm losing him slowly and painfully…_

_My poor Kevin…_

_I'm dying on the inside at the thought of losing him. Part of me knows that it'd be better than having him suffer here with his crime and his background and just all around being tortured. Never again would he be hit by a bad guy. Never again would he have to feel his heart break. Never again would he have to leave his mom behind again to go on a mission. Never again would he have the opportunity to die or betray someone._

_Maybe dying would be better for him. He'd be safer and happier._

_Whenever I see Kevin, I see him as an angel, but everyone knows he's not perfect. I can see him as a beauty that can never be hurt and I can see him a guy who just needs some love and some help and he'll be fine, but some days, he only gets hurt. If he's dead, he can't be hurt. I don't want to see him hurt again. I never want to see him hurt again._

_Okay, wow, I sound like an obsessed wife or something. It's not good. At all. Even I know this. I know he's going to die. I know he's a sad little boy and that he just needs help, but I love him so much… I don't want to watch him fall and leave me…_

_It started with a kiss. Electric. Not literally of course. Literally would mean some seriously bad things. But kissing him felt like he was amazing. He was so good to me. So good. The way his hands ran along my skin, sending shivers up my spine. The way his tongue found mine and how we wrestled for dominance before I finally settled with letting him take the lead. That was how amazing he was. He was so good to me…_

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_January 29, 2011  
__11: 37 A.M._

_Day Five_

_I broke down again. Don't judge me._

_I'm going to Kevin's. Write more tomorrow._

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**A/N: Kind of ran out of stuff to write… Anyways, reviews are welcomed.**

**~Sky**


	6. Day Six

**A/N: Time crunch. I'm trying to get **_**something**_** done today. I'm sorry.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10.**

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_January 30, 2011_  
_7:23 P.M._

_Day Six_

_Another long day over. Another day of seeing Kevin look bright and happy and cheerful and all that jazz. He was totally hopeless and we could see him falling apart a little bit more each day. I just waited for him to finally break one of these days. We all knew he was going to fall._

_Kevin has twelve days after today. And it makes me feel horrible. I have years yet. He has a few days. I don't deserve years. I don't need years. I shouldn't have years unless I can have my years with him at my side. I have to have my time with him. I don't know if I want to be without him._

_How will I live without him? I don't want to wait twelve days to watch him fall. I already talk to him every spare moment now. I'm instant messaging him right now while I write this entry in the journal of Kevin's condition._

_He sounds pretty cheerful. He sounds really happy. If you didn't know him the way I do, you wouldn't be able to tell that he's got cancer. Well, beside the coughing and the stumbling over words and the panic of him not catching his breath sometimes._

_It scares me when he can't breathe sometimes. It starts with coughing and only gets worse and then he struggles to drink in some air… It's horrifying. It'd be like watching a best friend nearly die. Except for the fact that I know he will die. And it completely sickens me._

_I'm always afraid of him losing it. He's been able to snap so many times before. He's fallen so many times before. I watched him lose his mind and slip through my fingers. I was there when he nearly killed my cousin. He nearly killed me. All because he was angry._

_That could've been why he was so calm. He was totally submissive about everything. Maybe he was afraid of losing his control. He was able to snap so easily… He was so prone to just breaking on the turn of a dime. I didn't want to see him break again. He was so scary when he lost his control. He was absolutely terrifying. Kevin scared me senseless whenever he got too angry. I've seen him lose his temper and that was bad, but I could only imagine seeing him now, how dangerous he could be. He had no limits, knowing he was going to die. Kevin couldn't fear prison or the law or anything material. He couldn't be afraid._

_I just messaged him again and… I'll just post the conversation. It's been edited to be more literate since Kevin and I just use chatspeak because it's so much easier._

_Kevin: Do you think you'll be okay?_

_Me: What?_

_Kevin: When I'm gone._

_Me: We don't know that yet. Ben and I are going to stop this, I promise._

_Kevin: Don't start making promises that you can't keep._

_Me: We will._

_Kevin: Gwen…_

_Me: I promise. Ben and I are going to work as hard as we can to fix you, understand?_

_Kevin: I love you._

_Me: I love you too, Kev._

_Breaks my heart to think that he's so totally shattered. He knows I'm going to miss him. He just wants to hear me say those three little words as much as he can before he can't hear them anymore. He wants to listen to me say "I love you" a thousand times over again because he won't be able to hear it again._

_He doesn't want me to be sad when he's gone. He wants to know that I'll be okay. He wants to know that I'm not afraid to be alone once he's in the next life, if there is one. Kevin just checks up on me in the middle of the night when I sleep with my phone under my pillow on vibrate and it buzzes, waking me up. I'll see a text that'll have my favorite three words on it in all capital letters._

_If I've ever seen a romantic movie or read a romance novel, I know that not even the best things that a guy could do, but it's something that just makes me smile and feel alive for hours afterward. I know who I'm meant to be with when I see Kevin treating me like this. He's never been a soft-hearted guy, but when I think about all that he's going through and the way he's treating me, I just know that he knows that I don't want to be with anyone else but him._

_Another day passed. Another day screwed. Another day where Kevin's still doomed to die. I won't let him die. But now things are looking hopeless. Six days and we haven't gotten anywhere. I'm feeling so useless and hopeless and worthless, but I'm not looking down. If Kevin's not looking down yet, I'm not looking down. I won't let my heart die yet. I won't let my heart sink into my chest hopelessly. Not yet. I'm not giving up. But I want to. I want to really badly._

_I'm not giving up yet._

_Tomorrow, we're going to find more ideas. More brainstorming towards finding some sort of solution. I'm hopeful, but it's not working too well._

_Kevin's mom is kicking him off the computer. We'll probably text until like ten thirty or so and I'll get that cute little "I LOVE YOU" text at about one in the morning and we'll talk for another hour or so. I'm losing so much sleep, but I don't care. We're totally falling all over each other._

_Too bad he's only got twelve days after today. And when I get that text, he'll have lost one more day of his quickly fading life._

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**A/N: Hit a time crunch near the end. Hope it was alright. Please review.**

**~Sky**


	7. Day Eight

**A/N: So the hits on "Yellow Butterfly"… were surprisingly low… So I decided another update was in order on this because it's been a while since I wrote anything for this story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or any associated characters.**

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_February 1, 2011  
__4:19 P.M._

_Day Eight_

_I know, I forgot to write a day. My bad. I meant to, but I got busy and Ben and I had a thing to go to with the Plumbers and it made me really mad and- I'll stop ranting now._

_We're still not coming up with anything. I mean, we still have eleven more days after today, no humor intended with that._

_Eleven will always be Kevin's number. It'll be weird when one day I'll see that number and I'll look to my right to find the guy who was always there for me and not see him smiling back at the thought of two ones placed next to each other. It's just a funny thing whenever we see that number. It's like a thing we have going. Kevin and I just give each other knowing looks while Ben giggles in the background like a maniac. But that's just my doofus cousin._

_I think the most annoying part about all this is that I know something that will fix everything, but I don't know what it is yet. It always happens. Like when I had to go back in time with my spell to fix Kevin's mutation. I knew I could've stopped them in the first place, but I only knew it after it had already happened. It's terrible, but I know I have to deal with it. It's like dealing with high school and a dying boyfriend and every other crazy things that's come into my life and threatened to destroy everything. And trust me, that has happened _a lot_._

_So my life's going pretty bad right now between the aliens that end up slaughtering Ben and I while we're trying to fight them off and the fact that every other spare moment that I'm not kicking another random extraterrestrial's behind, I'm with Kevin. Which means I'm not getting any homework done, I'm not doing anymore research to help him, and, to put it bluntly, I'm getting absolutely nowhere at this point in my life._

_Not that I'm ungrateful. I'm happy to be able to be with Kevin so much. He's so sweet and everything and spending time with him always makes me feel like I'm doing something good for the world by making a sad person happy. I might be losing him, but at least he'll be wearing a smile when he's gone for good._

_I won't be. I keep telling him I'll be alright and Ben's doing the same. We're trying to pretend like nothing's wrong with him. The only difference that there is from any other day off of our Plumber duties is that we're at Kevin's house instead of at Ben's or my own._

_Honestly, I love Kevin's house. I love how his mom is always just hanging around with us and acting more like a kid than a parent and I love how she, of all people, makes Kevin look mature. She's almost like that little old lady who will be forever a child at heart, but knows she's definitely not. And for some reason, that makes his mom even cooler. No, she doesn't make us cookies, and no, she's definitely not that relaxed parent who'll let him get away with anything, but she's easily calmer than my parents and my aunt and uncle._

_That, and Kevin's house smells like a delicious mix of vanilla and mint. All the time. It's really, really weird, I know, but it smells amazing. Don't shoot it down until you try it._

_Off the topic of Kevin's house now (but seriously, I do love his house…), I'm going to miss Kevin. Eleven days left and he's still staying strong. He cracks a little bit more now and has to hide in his room sometimes, but it's not bad. Maybe four times a day he'll just totally lose that façade of calm impassiveness and he'll have to leave so that Ben doesn't see. Ben, of course, totally knows that Kevin's completely shattered on the inside, but I'm not going to tell Kevin that._

_And when he does go back into his room, I usually give him a minute or two on his own before following him back there if his mom doesn't follow first. I want to be that supportive girlfriend that's there through thick and thin and will do absolutely anything to help her love. Girlfriends are supposed to do that through their boyfriend's divorces, hard times, you name it, we're supposed to be there. It's what being in a relationship means. And I'm staying by his side until he dies._

_And everyone knows he's going to die._

_This morning, Kevin said that Ben should go tell Max. Because Grandpa Max was still completely unaware of all this. And so Ben, being the loyal little minion he is to Kevin (while he's sick at least), is getting in his car and driving off into the sunset. And we don't see him for like another five hours. He came back about an hour ago and he was like "Oh yeah, we had pizza and everything and they bought me smoothies and we went to a-" and Kevin and I are glaring at him in that way that he just knows he did something completely stupid. Then he goes, "Oh, and I did tell them. About twenty minutes ago. Then I left." Because that's exactly something that my idiot cousin would do._

_After that, things died down. Ben turned on Sumo Slammers, Kevin and I moseyed our way back into his room where it was just sheer silence. And the silence was so good. It tasted so sweet. We hung back there for a little while until Ben's new episode was over and then my cousin came back into my boyfriend's bedroom where we're twined together on his bed, his rough lips against mine and… I shouldn't say much. If Kevin ever, ever got a hold of this journal, he'd be so mad… I don't want him to find it._

_We're hiding back in his room again and he's asleep. He's not getting any better. It's getting worse drastically. People with cancer usually don't get that bad so fast, but Kevin… Kevin was really, really bad._

_I was actually starting to worry about him. It wasn't looking good in the first place, but now he was horrible. There were dark bags under his eyes and he was miserable all the time. He never complained and that was really, really weird. He just wasn't being himself. And I was really, really hating how Kevin wasn't Kevin anymore._

_But we still spend at least two hours a day trying to come up with a way to save him. We're working on it. I've pulled out spell book after spell book and nothing has caught my eye that would take care of him or take away some of his pain. Ben hasn't been able to unlock the Ultimatrix's master control yet to find any aliens that could heal Kevin either._

_We're still on our own for now. And Kevin's still only got eleven days left after today._

_I'll write more whenever. I'm trying not to wake him up right now. He's still asleep. He's so innocent…_

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_February 1, 2011  
__6:38 P.M._

_Day Eight_

_Kevin's awake and he's smiling again and he and Ben are wrestling because they've really run out of things to do. It's horribly boring sometimes, but Kevin won't leave the house out of pride and there's not much to do at his house._

_We're just relaxing at this point. We're trying to do the best we can to make Kevin's last few days feel good. Ben keeps him entertained and gives him that brotherly figure that he never really had and I'm just trying to be a good girlfriend. I'm sticking by his side all the time and I'm trying to take care of him the best I can…_

_Kevin's mom is just hanging around the house with us. Sometimes she'll skip through the room and Ben just smiles and I think she looks ridiculous in an adorable way (like the way a little kid making a funny face is adorable) and Kevin laughs because… I don't really know why, but he does because he just does._

_I like to hear Kevin laugh. It makes me feel like maybe he hasn't had such a hard life after all._

_But we all know that he had too many miserable years to make up for what little good he can get now and that he doesn't deserve to die yet… He just doesn't…_

_Eleven days left._

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**A/N: Ah, I'm liking how this is turning out. I've already got the rest of it mostly planned out in my head. So review please!**

**~Sky**


	8. Day Nine

**A/N: I feel horrible for not updating this. It kind of got thrown to the wayside… My bad. Sorry guys.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10.**

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_February 2, 2011  
__11:05 A.M._

_Day Nine_

_Kevin's not letting me see him today. He got worse last night. When I talked with his mom on the phone, she said that he was almost gone last night. She told me that he had nearly choked in his sleep._

_Just hearing that alone made a shiver race down my spine. I hadn't known that he was so close. Maybe he didn't have as many days as we thought he did. So I cried for a little while after I hung up with her. I didn't want to. I promised myself I'd be strong. I promised myself I wouldn't cry. I promised that I wouldn't break. And I promised Kevin that if I cried over losing him, he would be crying wherever he was too._

_I didn't believe him, but I promised anyways. I couldn't upset him. I couldn't do that._

_Anyways, ten more days. Ten days left and I can't stand knowing that I can't be with him. I'm going insane on the inside because I miss him so much._

_I've only been away from him for a night and a few hours and I already want him back. I don't want to sound clingy or anything, but I really miss him and I really want him back. Now. The hardest part about this moment is that I know I'll miss him one day and I won't have the comfort of knowing that I'll be able to see him again the next day. Because he won't be here anymore._

_It's hard to think that Kevin is slowly fading out right before my eyes. I'm the one who promised to take care of him and I promised that I'd shelter him from anything that threatened to ruin his life and then this happened… I wanted to take care of him, but now that's looking impossible. I honestly just want to fix him and hold him in my arms and tell him that I love him a thousand times over again._

_I don't know what I'll do without him. He's such a great guy. He never deserved this. He deserved that house with the picket fence and the golden retriever and the rose garden. Of course, I knew there'd be alien tech inside the big brick house, but you know, if the outside's good enough, it kind of makes up for whatever's inside. And I wanted him to have that rose garden and picket fence and whatever else he wanted. I was pretty sure he wouldn't want that perfect lifestyle, but it's what I think most people want. Kevin would probably be happy with a trashy apartment in the city. As long as it had a toilet and tv, he'd be set. And maybe I like him because he's so simple._

_I'm staying home for the day, working on this journal and typing up research and saving what I've got to another folder. And looking through my spell books. While doing homework. And catching up on chores. And trying to text Kevin._

_He won't respond. I'm not sure why, but it's driving me crazy._

_So I'm trying to do all this stuff and catch up on everything that I've missed (I'm skipping school to be with Kevin. My parents are okay with it as long as I get all my work done in time for the end of the year) and Kevin still isn't texting me back. And I don't know why._

_Right now, I'm lying on my bed and typing this out because I said I would update every day, didn't I? And I am. Although this update will be kind of short… So yeah, whoever's reading this in the future, sorry._

_Anyways, Kevin isn't doing very good. His mom said he's feeling really sick today, worse than usual at least. That's why he wouldn't let Ben and I come over. And Ben's instant messaging me. He says that he's worried about Kevin._

_Not like he's telling me something I don't already know. I'll just say that when the three of us are apart, we're always texting each other. Or at least I'm texting both of them. I don't know if they text each other, I'm not a stalker or anything. I don't really want to be either. And so I'm texting Kevin reassurances that I'll be fine because he wants to make sure that I'll be fine and then Ben's telling me how worried he is and I'm telling him how worried I am. It feels like I'm always talking in circles. I am worried about Kevin, but I think I'll be fine, but I know deep in my heart that I won't be._

_So in the meantime, I'm putting on a brave face and walking around like none of it is bothering me._

_Kevin's still not texting me back._

_I think I'll get back to my homework. I've got at least twenty projects to catch up on and two papers to write and probably another boatload of worksheets to do. Plus, I still want to get some spell books read today. I'll update more later if I can._

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_February 2, 2011  
__3:32 P.M._

_Day Nine_

_So I'm looking at some spell books. Just thought I'd jot down some of the theories I have for certain spells. Some of them make sense in my head, but from what they'd do, I know they won't work. I'm thinking about pairing some of them together so that maybe that'd work, but then I'd have to find a counterspell to reverse it and so far, I'm getting nowhere on the first part of that plan, so what's the point of the latter portion?_

_I found a spell that can reverse a person's life, but I'm not sure how fast it'd work. I'm assuming that it'd run at a decent speed, right? Hopefully faster than Benjamin Button, but I don't know much about that movie. It kind of creeped me out. And I'm thinking that maybe if I pair that with a spell that could physically stop aging, I could pause Kevin's life while still take time back. Although the problem with that is, what would it do to his head and would the aging spell stop him from going backwards as well as forwards?_

_These are the questions of life._

_And what if I physically tried to retract it with some sort of spell (still haven't found one yet, but I am working on it) that can take cells out of his body. I could get rid of the cancer altogether. And I could have actually found the cure for cancer._

_Okay, that totally just hit me. I'm looking for the cure for cancer._

_That sounds completely ridiculous. I know that people have spent their entire lives dedicated to causes like this, saving lives and preventing disease. Never in a million years did I ever think I'd be someone dedicating nineteen days of my life to fighting cancer. It feels like I just got hit by a bag of bricks. I'm looking for a cure for cancer. And I'm not a doctor. I'm a sixteen-year-old girl/Anodite that just wants to throw some magic in the mix and fix the world's leading cause of death (right up there next to heart disease of course)._

_I can't believe I'm doing this now. I'm trying to cure Kevin while in turn trying to cure every human being across the nation that has been affected by something like this. I mean, this is serious business. If I had some help with my spell books and maybe an assistant, I might be able to pull it off, but I don't have time for that. No one could learn this fast enough and there aren't enough people like Charmcaster out there anymore. Her people are a dying race and I know I don't want to try and go back to Ledger Domain. I can't get back anyways._

_So I'm the only one that could stop something this dangerous. Okay, wow. When you realize you're trying to save the world and people that are already dying, it hits hard. Homework is going on the wayside again. I'm trying to cure cancer. What more do my teachers want? They taught me all I need to know. If this goes over well, I'll be world famous, I'll have my boyfriend and he'll be perfectly perfect again and so many people will be suffering less._

_What I do with Ben and Kevin is more of preventing people from getting hurt. Now doing it one-on-one with someone is huge. Saving someone's life instead of stopping them from being hurt in the first place. I think someone just dropped a piano or a safe on me. It's like the whole world's on my shoulders now. The whole thing is just horrible to know that I could be saving lives right now. I do it everyday, sure, but nothing has ever hit me with this magnitude before. Highbreed invasion, but that was Ben's thing. This is my thing._

_And I could be saving people everywhere._

_Kevin's still not answering my texts. I'll write tomorrow. For now, I have to fight cancer._

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**A/N: Was at a block and suddenly the last part was like sporadic and amazingly fun to write. Weird. Anyways, review!**

**~Sky**


	9. Day Twelve

**A/N: Time crunch. Special apology going out to Kira Sema. This was supposed to be rated T in the first place so it's my bad! It must've slipped my mind when I was posting. Sometimes I just kind of zone out...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Sorry.**

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_February 5, 2011  
__6:29 A.M._

_Day Twelve_

_I'm stupid for not writing anything for a while, but a lot of stuff has been going on. I'll just give you a little list of things that have been going on:_

_Ben has been trying to piss off Azmuth. Why, you ask? Because if he pisses off Azmuth enough, maybe he'll come and mess with the Ultimatrix. And when Azmuth messes with the Ultimatrix, Ben gets new aliens. Ben's plan is to get a new alien that has some sort of radiation power that could help Kevin._

_I had thoughts of NRG for a while, you know, since he's radioactive and all, but we kind of figured that it'd hurt more than help. P'andor could've been the reason that Kevin's DNA was messed up to begin with. I mean, I'm not saying, I'm just saying._

_That kind of makes me grateful that Kevin made me get out of that battlefield before something bad happened. I mean, I could've been killed because of radiation, but we didn't even think that maybe some of it could seep through Kevin's armor. And there was a moment where I was afraid for myself, but I was more afraid for him when we were fighting P'andor. I should've known… I even took a blast of the radiation, but he somehow… He's sick now._

_Why couldn't it have been me? Why?_

_In other news of my past few days, I still haven't found anything that relates to cancer anywhere. I'm falling apart at the seams trying to find something. I'm so desperate that it's almost sickening. I don't eat unless my mom brings food up, I've been skipping school, going only when I know there's a test. And trust me, I don't go into those tests very confident. My head is full of facts on cancer now, not schoolwork. I'm not ready to learn anything except for stuff that could help Kevin._

_I go to school for Chemistry class and that's it. Then I take my pass and leave and head back to dive into my spell books._

_Today, I'm not going to school, I'm not going through spell books, I'm not doing any research. I'm not going to try. I've already wasted too much time that I could've spent with Kevin._

_He's doing alright at the moment. He's not dead yet, but he tried. It kind of hurts that he was set on suicide yesterday until his mom came home early from work. From what I heard, when he saw her face, he totally broke down and started crying. Dropped the knife he was holding and just fell to the floor like a little kid, tears streaming down his face as he gasped and hiccupped for air._

_Kevin was trying to kill himself. He had the suicide note ready and everything. He's ready to go. He has a will written up on his computer. No one's going to look at it until we know he's going to be gone. Kevin really isn't taking any of this well. I wouldn't either. He's just waiting for that moment to come when his heart'll stop and when he won't be able to take another breath… I don't want to be there when that happens._

_I'm writing up another entry in this journal just because I'm getting done with packing up so I can stay over at Kevin's house for the next week. He's only got seven days left now. We've kind of decided to go stay at his place for the most part since the whole suicide thing this morning. That's why I'm writing so early. It's only like a quarter 'til seven or something like that._

_I've got a bag full of spell books and clothes and everything I'll need over there. Ben and I are thinking about going over in shifts so we're not completely living out of Kevin's house. We're going to stay there overnight and all, but one of us can go home and eat breakfast and shower at our own homes instead of just mooching off of Kevin's mom. She's already going to have a tough time with the fact that she's already going to lose Kevin._

_I kind of wonder how she's taking things. Kevin's mom's generally such a positive person, never really one to look down. But days are growing shorter and life's getting tougher. I mean, I don't blame her for being so hard on him now especially. She's kind of cracking down maybe just to get those last moments of being a mother in. She's single and alone and without Kevin…_

_I really, really feel bad for Kevin's mom. She'll live in solitude if we don't find a way to save Kevin._

_But Ben and I are working our butts off trying to save him. Ben's bound to break the Ultimatrix for good if he keeps playing with it the way he is. He's pretty much got the thing destroyed to the point of no return. As in, I'm worried about him. Really worried about him. Ben's even reaching that point where he's desperate, the same way he was when he was trying to kill Kevin._

_I'm pretty sure I'm at that point too. I'm doing anything I can just to find a cure. So far, nothing. So far, I'm getting nowhere. And I think I'm doing worse by trying to do everything than I would be trying to do nothing. That probably doesn't make any sense, but it does to me._

_By doing nothing, I'd be spending my time with Kevin instead of just searching for a cure, which would be doing something. And going for three whole days without seeing him must've kind of messed with him enough to drive him to that suicidal point. I'm actually scared for Kevin's sanity now. And this time, I know it's not energy doing it to him. This is him, the real Kevin, doing this to himself._

_That's why Ben and I have to stay over at his house. It's for his own safety. We're trying to keep him protected from himself and from the inevitable end of him going out alone. He told me, once, that he was always afraid he'd die alone. And I never wanted him to be alone. Ever. So Ben and I are trying to keep him company at all times. At this point, we know he could drift away from us at any moment._

_He's really, really sick. I'm not even kidding you. He's white as a ghost and his eyes are just so dull and lifeless. He hardly even smiles anymore unless Ben falls down or trips over something and I can barely spark any life into him. I've even worn my hair down (something he's always loved) and he just plays with it like it's down every day. And it's not. Which is why I wear it down. And what am I supposed to do? He's sick and I can't fix him and it makes me mad that he's not even trying to get better._

_Unless he is and we just don't know it. I really want to help him. He doesn't deserve to die. He just doesn't. He's too special to die._

_After all the things he's been through, Kevin deserves the life he's earned. He helped save the universe. Then he actually did save it by making the ultimate sacrifice. Or at least the ultimate sacrifice in his eyes. Going insane was definitely worse than death for him. It was like a dagger to the heart, reminding him that he was always susceptible to going back to that miserable life of insanity, a could that would always hang over his head. He deserved a life that wouldn't remind him of who he had been before. He's a hero now and that's what matters, but he's living the way most people of his social status do. Little ranch-style house, minimum furnishings, just the basic things necessary to survive._

_It kind of hurts for me to look at my own life and see how damn good I've got it compared to how he's living. I didn't earn this perfect life. Sure, I helped save the universe, but damn it, he's _dying_…_

_I'm still not sure what I'm going to do when he's gone. He really is my soul mate. We were meant to be together. We met when we were kids for a reason and that time we had met between now and then wasn't just coincidence. Kevin and I were put together because it was our destiny. No matter what, I should've known I was always going to end up with him. All those little obstacles never mattered. Darkstar was just to make Kevin jealous; I was after my dark Osmosian the whole time._

_It's annoying how I'm not sure if I'll be able to move on after him. He was my first love and he's _dying_…_

_I'm so heartbroken right now I can't even see straight. Literally, tears are burning my eyes. I hate this. Why can't I just fix him? He fixes cars and I'm supposed to fix him. This is how this is supposed to work. So why isn't it working? Why am I not good enough to make him better?_

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**A/N: Sorry, just wanted to get some stuff out. Glad to have gotten a bit more up today. Review please!**

**~Sky**


	10. Day Thirteen

**A/N: Okay, I have people on my Facebook page telling me to update this. Wow, that's amazing! I love you guys for reading! You're all great for reviewing and I love how you're all enjoying this story so much! I'm glad I wrote it! So here's another chapter for you, hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 in any way at all. Man of Action does.**

* * *

_February 6, 2011  
__9:11 A.M._

_Day Thirteen_

_No, I'm not paranoid. No, I'm not freaking out. No, nothing is freaking wrong with me._

_Well, it's day thirteen and I'm a sorceress, you know, never believed in magic completely before, but then it turned out that I'm sort of made of magic (technically mana, but you get the point) and that aliens exist and maybe I'm a little bit superstitious…_

_Bite me._

_More than ever, I plan on clinging to Kevin today. Right now, he's curled up on the couch beside me. Honestly, he looks more peaceful than he's been in a long time. This morning, when he woke up, he was really pale and tired despite having just woken up._

_Honestly, I'm worried about him. I'm scared that I won't be able to save him. I'm afraid that I won't be able to take good enough care of him. I don't want to fail him because he's got so much to live for._

_It's almost funny (in a completely sadistic way) that once he's got this perfect life with me and Ben and his Plumbers badge and his mom and his car and his human body back, he's going right into something that'll take that perfect life away from him. I'm really broken inside over this. He's an amazing guy, and this is the second chance he's deserved for a long time. We gave him a ton of chances to redeem himself; Kevin took each and every one, trying to make himself better. He was amazing, really, he was. He deserved every single chance we gave him. I loved him so much that I wanted to give him a hundred more chances even if he screwed all of those up. I was ready to keep giving him chances after all that he went through._

_He recovered from his mutation a couple of weeks ago. He was doing really good after that, never really showing that anything was wrong. I wasn't sure if maybe before that he was doing bad… I mean, that would kind of explain the risk he had taken by absorbing the Ultimatrix._

_Seriously, Kevin is so cute right now. He's got one arm crooked under his head and the other is tucked tightly to his chest. His dark hair is fluttering a little bit every time he exhales…_

_But if he knew about his cancer before the problem with Aggregor, that would explain why he would take the risk of ruining himself. Maybe he figured that if he lost control, he would only be alive for so long to destroy things. If he really lost his sanity, he wouldn't be alive long enough to ruin everything in the world._

_Now I'm curious to see if he knew…_

_Have I mentioned how cute he looks right now? Like, seriously, he's adorable. He's curled up so tight, he's breathing just fine (that's everyone's main concern at this moment), and there isn't any pain written on his face like there usually is when he sleeps. He's so freaking peaceful…_

_It makes me want to cry to know that I'm going to lose him in… six days… I've got less than a week with my boyfriend. Less than a week._

_Anyways, I'm still not finding any spells that I could use to fix him. I'm still working to find a mix of spells, but I don't know if those would work either. I think the thing we're having to work around is the fact that his powers have such a big impact on this problem. Like, that's the only reason he's so sick. Maybe if he were completely human he wouldn't be sick for a few more years at least…_

_Ben's working to piss off Azmuth. He's trying to find a way to get Azmuth to come, but maybe he's busy with something else. I mean, he _is_ one of the smartest beings of the universe. Actually, he may be the smartest being in the universe. Which would be a bit scary._

_Kevin still looks cute. Just thought I'd mention that._

_I'm ready to take a nap, really. I'm exhausted and ready to crash for a few hours. That, and Kevin's stirring a little bit. Maybe if I take my chance now, I'll get to cuddle up in his arms… Write more later._

* * *

_February 6, 2011  
__2:03 P.M._

_Day Thirteen_

_Still day thirteen. I'm still panicking. A lot. I'm panicking. A lot. Like, the days of ten and eleven were good because those are our lucky numbers around here, but I'm a magical sorceress (according to the people who don't understand the whole Anodite thing at least) and magic and superstition go hand in hand. Superstition includes black cats, spilling salt, walking under ladders, and the number thirteen._

_So me being magic and this whole alien thing is kind of leaving me a little paranoid. That, and Kevin woke up screaming earlier._

_Now keep in mind that I was curled up in his arms and that he was still out cold. Then he suddenly screams, I fall off the couch, and Ben's coming out of Kevin's bedroom where he was searching the Extranet for some way of contacting Azmuth other than pissing him off like an email address or a phone number or something._

_While I'm on the floor and trying to figure out why I'm down there, Kevin is freaking out and grabbing at his throat and it's the scariest thing I have ever seen. You can just tell by the fear on his face and the fact that he's so pale that he can't breathe. I've seen a lot of horrifying things, but that made my heart turn to ice in less than a second._

_Ben has to hit him kind of hard a few times. I wince. I hate seeing him hurt. And then Kevin eventually starts coughing, and the color returns to his face._

_I swear, that was the scariest thing I have ever seen in my entire life._

_It takes a couple seconds for Kevin to start breathing right again, but he's fine now. I'm working on my laptop (well, duh, I'm writing this) while the guys watch Sumo Slammers. I can tell Ben's brain (or at least what's left of it) is turning to mush and that Kevin is bored senseless, but he won't say anything._

_Really, we're all just running the homestretch of the race. We're losing hope. How much time does he really have left? How many more times will he wake up when he can't breathe? Then there's the inevitable question of how many more times will he wake up?_

_I hate asking myself that one. It's day thirteen. I just want to get it over with. I'm dying on the inside. I hate this. I hate this. I want to fix Kevin. I want to stop cancer. I want to make him better. I want to be able to love him and know I can have him every day for the rest of my life. I like to know that Kevin will always be there. I want to be able to keep him close to me._

_How many more times will I be able to be in his arms?_

_I think I'll go through my spell books again later. We're really running low on time and what happened earlier was just proving that we're running out of time. The clock is running low on us. We've only got so much time left before he won't be here anymore…_

_Yeah, I'm freaking out. I don't want to lose Kevin._

* * *

_February 6, 2011  
__11:29 P.M._

_Day Thirteen_

_We've survived the day. Kevin's asleep, not coughing too badly, not choking on anything. He's doing alright. I'm staying awake until two in the morning just for safety purposes. I don't want to sleep when it's dangerous for Kevin. No, I'm not freaking out over the thirteen thing. Not at all._

_Staying up until two in the morning, reading spell books. I'll be good. I just want to keep an eye on Kevin, that's all. I'm in that chair at his desk and he's out cold on his bed. He's pale again, but he looks like he's doing alright. He's not coughing and that's the only thing that we're really worrying about. As long as he's breathing alright… As long as he can breathe… That's all we want… We just want him to breathe…_

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**A/N: There's another chapter. Hope you like it! Review please!**

**~Sky**


	11. Day Fourteen

**A/N: Ah, I really wanted to write more of this yesterday, but that didn't happen, now did it? Anyways, gonna write more today. And today, I decided I'd get to the fun part. You know, that dramatic part near the end where… well, I'll just let you read it.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or any associated characters.**

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_February 7, 2011  
__9:03 A.M._

_Day Fourteen_

_No, he's not dead. I'm grateful for that. I sat with him all night. Ben and I would've taken shifts had Ben actually been somewhat awake. Every time I was about to go to sleep myself, I would see his head loll to one side and I'd just give up on even the slightest notion of sleep. Because what if Kevin needed me? He surely couldn't count on Ben if he couldn't even manage to stay awake for ten minutes or so. So I sat up all night doing research on the extranet to see if I could find out anymore about Osmosians that I didn't already know. There wasn't much, but I did dig up a few random facts. Nothing important enough to help me find a cure though._

_I'm running on zero sleep, so if any of my writing sounds a little bit hysterical or ridiculous, just keep that in mind. I'm not exactly completely awake. Kevin's armwrestling Ben (which isn't a good thing in my eyes) while Sumo Slammers is on in the background. Neither of them are paying much attention to it. Kevin's beaten Ben every round but once because he started coughing again. It wasn't as bad as it was yesterday when he was nearly choking, but I was still terrified._

_We're not any closer to a cure. Apparently, Azmuth isn't even on Galvan Mark 2 right now. He's off on Khoros trying to stop the beginnings of a war. I'm freaking out because we don't have Azmuth, we don't have magic, and we don't have normal science on our side. We're working with basically nothing and trying to cure a guy who's only got six days to live. It's only morning, so I'm counting today as a day. Yeah, my math skills aren't doing too great right now. Ignore my math if it's not right._

_Then there's the fact that Kevin is really, really not doing so good. He's not doing too bad though either. He's coughing still. He's still sick. He's still hurting. But it's all kind of numbing for him. All the pain is just a dull pinprick for him. He's not really reacting to the little things now. When he coughs, he ignores it while we panic._

_Ben and I are teamed up to keep an eye on him. He watches him during the day while I work at night most of the time. I'll have to sleep later. Probably after lunch or something._

_I'm skipping school. My parents were alright with it as long as I got all my work done later. Of course, they don't care that Kevin's going to be gone. They don't mind him being around or the fact that we're dating, but they know that I have better options with my choice of boyfriends. They think I want some preppy boy who'll treat me right and who'll give me more career options and more benefits. Not for me. I want a guy who won't be afraid to argue with me, who'll tell me what's really on his mind, who'll be a bastard sometimes and won't be care what I think about his being a bastard. Kevin is like that, and that's why he's the one I want. I don't want someone to be obedient and listen to me all the time. Where's the fun in that?_

_So Ben and I are still plotting a way to take care of Kevin. Maybe plotting isn't the right verb. Thinking of? Like that doesn't even sound right. I don't know. We're just trying to fix him, how does that sound? We want to keep him around, we want to take care of him. Me more than Ben, but I just care more than Ben. I _love _Kevin. Ben's just his best friend. Completely different concepts._

_Azmuth can't help us. He's off stopping a war like we tried to do before. That didn't go over so well. Well, hilariously enough (in a completely sardonic way), that was back when Kevin was dealing weapons with Argit. Some of us were trying to stop a war and one of us was just urging it on._

_At this point, now that I think about it, I wonder if that's what the case is now. If Ben and I are trying to stop him from dying and if he's just waiting for it to happen. It's not something you can ask someone outright. How would you ask that? "Hey, are you waiting to die?" Yeah, Ben's that stupid, but not even he would understand it. But Kevin's got enough skeletons in his closet to create a mass grave. There have to be a hundred reasons he would want to die. He's fine now, but if there's enough on his mind that makes him want to die…_

_He did attempt suicide…_

_He always calls himself a monster…_

_He always thinks he's not worthy of me…_

_He can only see himself as less than others…_

_Okay, now I'm scaring myself. If Kevin is just waiting to be taken away, we kind of have to keep an eye on him more than normal. Or at least I will. When I'm not sleeping. Because I really, really need to get some sleep. I'm half delusional just sitting here and typing. Part of me is dying inside because Kevin is dying and the rest of me is trying to find a cure for his hurt so that my own hurt goes away. Does that even make any sense?_

_Wow, staying awake is getting harder._

_Kevin just beat Ben again. Even after I taught my cousin karate and helped him figure out how to work out and all of those things I did for him, my boyfriend is still beating him. It's funny, really. And it's obvious that Kevin's enjoying himself._

_If that's what makes him happy, I'll take it. As long as he's happy before he goes. That's what we want._

* * *

_February 7, 2011  
__4:52 P.M._

_Day Fourteen_

_Magic doesn't do anything. We're still working on a way to help Kevin. Ben and I are working while Kevin sleeps. Ben's doing more research now. For once, my cousin isn't being a bumbling idiot. I love him, but jeez, he's a pain most of the time considering how often he's not thinking._

_Scratch that. Ben doesn't think. Ever._

_I just woke up from my five hour nap (I made sure Kevin was asleep first and that Ben had Sumo Slammers to keep him awake), and I can finally think clearly. Kevin's still out cold on the couch. It helps to know that he's resting. I'm not sure if that helps cancer, but I can hope, can't I?_

_We're working on separate laptops and Ben's got my Plumber's badge hooked up to his while I'm writing on mine and doing some research. I'm looking at cancer stuff while he does Osmosian research and tries to fill in the blanks that we need to find a cure. Mostly stuff about alien diseases. Maybe this could be linked to something on Osmos. I'm not sure. Maybe? Hopefully?_

_Not to say that I'm hopeful for an Osmosian disease or anything, but if it would fix him…_

_Cancer is the overgrowth of mutated cells, right? Right. Or at least that's according to the internet and my biology teacher._

_And that's as far as I'm getting._

_Cures are stuff like radiation that'd kill the cells that cause cancer. Then there's the problem of radiation killing off good cells too and all that. Ugh, if only we knew what we were really dealing with._

_Well, we do know. We're dealing with Kevin, an Osmosian, who has cancer, a human problem. How do you cure an alien with a human disease? I don't know. Ben doesn't know. Does anyone know?_

_I hate this. I hate it a lot. I wish Kevin would just get better. I wish he'd try to get better. Maybe if h_

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**A/N: Yeah, I know. I cut you off. So you wanna read more? Review and I'll post the next chapter soon!**

**~Sky**


	12. Day Fifteen

**A/N: Hilariously enough, I'm doing a school project where we have to label the day and what we did and everything and when I was writing today's day number on the top of my page, I had a little flashback of writing Day Fourteen on the last chapter of this. Weird, huh?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10 or anything else in this story.**

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_February 8, 2011  
__6:50 A.M._

_Day Fifteen_

_I feel awful for leaving the entry hanging there. It was just that I realized something vital to our project._

_Kevin absorbs matter. We all already know this. He can absorb any material, living or nonliving. He can let it alter his body composition, which may have been one of the main reasons why he got cancer in the first place. But what we didn't think was how we could use his powers to reverse the curse._

_Well, it's not technically a curse, but it rhymed and sounded cool._

_My thought when the idea of combining human and Osmosian problems was that they would collide and we would run into more problems. Cancer is a human thing, Kevin isn't totally human. But what I didn't take into consideration was the fact that Kevin's problem is a human problem and that his Osmosian powers can absorb humans._

_Including human cells._

_Plan right now is to get him up, get him moving, and get him absorbing human cells to replace the ones that are being overrun with his cancer. So far so good. Right now, Ben's got a hand on him. Kevin's awake pretty much all the time now. His Osmosian abilities are constantly at work. He's absorbing Ben right now. Ben's asleep. Weird, but okay._

_The odds of this actually working are slim, but maybe, just maybe, it'll hold off the cancer long enough for us to get word to Azmuth or someone else who could help so they could come and save him. Azmuth is our best shot other than hacking the Ultimatrix, but that hasn't worked yet. We're trying to work the Azmuth angle first._

_Kevin's been awake since last night. Ben and I had to work out how it would actually work and Kevin got to sleep until about seven. Then we woke him up and told him the plan._

_It was strange that he didn't seem to care much that we had found a cure. His eyes were listless, his features were cold. It was like he was the living dead. Kevin just didn't seem to care enough about how hard we were trying to keep him with us._

_I think he's lost all hope. I don't know if he wants to try anymore. He looks so tired and weak and limp. I fell in love with Kevin Ethan Levin, bad boy, heartthrob, pain in the butt, smart-ass. But this wasn't him. This was a shell of his former self. This wasn't the Kevin I knew._

_But what can we do? Tell him that he'll live? That'd be a lie. We don't know that for sure yet and I don't want to lie to him. Tell him that he's going to die? Now why would I do that? I'm not a moron. We can't bring his hopes up without running the risk of having them be shot down again. We don't know if he's going to make it. We don't know if he'll die either. This is something that's still on the edge now that we've hit a breakthrough. It's still early though. We've got… four days? Yeah, four days. Five if you include today since it's only something like seven in the morning. But yeah. We've got a little time left, more if this works._

_The results are so far looking like this:  
__-he hasn't coughed much  
__-he's got a little more color in his face  
__-he's laughing again and not choking  
__-overall, he looks better_

_There's the results. For now. I mean, I'm not a doctor. I've done a ton of labs for science classes, but now I'm actually applying this crap. You wouldn't think you'd have to use it until your alien boyfriend suddenly gets cancer and you have to heal him in nineteen days. Yeah, lucky me, right?_

_Ha. Lucky me… The irony of that statement… Yeah, never mind._

_Anyways, Ben's going to sleep in a few hours. He and Kevin have been hanging out for… something like ten hours (more fun with numbers, I know) and I'm pretty sure Ben's going to snap soon. Kevin's quiet most of the time, and Ben doesn't deal well with quiet people. I'm not even sure how he stands Julie sometimes. If he can't take Kevin being quiet, how does he date one of the quietest girls in Bellwood? Ben's such a doofus._

_It's going to be my turn to take care of Kevin in about an hour or so. My thoughts are that we'll just sit there and talk about stupid things that won't even matter. Ben's going to call me in three… two… one… And there. So I have to go and hold my boyfriend's hand for about twelve hours to save his life. Will write more later._

* * *

_February 9, 2011  
__10:01 P.M._

_Day Fifteen_

_I sat with Kevin for fourteen hours, and I am freaking tired. Honestly, you don't know how hard it is to sit there for that long and not be exhausted. It's like, you're thinking the entire time and you can do whatever you want, read a book, laugh, talk, anything, but it'll still mentally tire you out. For me, it was just exhausting thinking about the topic of Kevin dying. He's sitting there next to me, dying. Dying. How am I supposed to take that?_

_Let me just say that I'm not taking it well._

_I'm upset. I'm mad. I'm tired. I don't know what I really want to feel. Kevin just doesn't deserve to die. Not yet. It's not his time and he shouldn't have to go. That's why Ben and I are so determined to keep him with us._

_I don't know if we're just being selfish to keep him with us or not, but it just seems that he belongs with us. He's part of this team, part of the family. Kevin's more than just my boyfriend. He's someone more. He may just be a person, but I think he's the symbol of every tortured soul who has gone through the pain and suffering of neglect, abuse, and persecution. Kevin's someone who has vindicated himself for his crimes. He's made up for what's he's done wrong, he's fixed all his bad karma. He's better now and the world's still trying to take him away from us._

_It's just not fair._

_But I'll just say that we did have another interesting conversation. Which leads me to think that he may be ready to just leave. After all he's been through, I wouldn't blame him for just wanting to give in to the forces of Death, but I don't want him to go. Call me selfish, but he's mine. He's my heart, my soul, my only one. And his mom would miss him. Ben would miss him. He's got so much to live for still._

_Anyways, here's what was said:_

_Kevin: Why do you keep trying?_

_Me: Why should I stop trying?_

_Kevin: Gwen, we both know this is hopeless. It's not worth you and Benji skipping school or-_

_Me: You don't think you're worth it? Kevin, we risked the entire world to keep you with us. The entire _universe _actually, and now you just want to give up on us? We could've let you slip away before, but no. We care too much about you to let you slide through our fingers._

_Kevin: Gwen-_

_Me: You're more than a teammate, more than a friend, more than my boyfriend. You're more important to Ben and I than the world._

_Kevin: Don't say that._

_Me: You are. You're his first friend. And you already know how much you mean to me._

_Kevin: Please stop wasting your time. Please. It's not worth it. I'm not worth it._

_Me: I'm serious, Kevin. Ben and I aren't giving up. We just won't._

_Kevin: I don't want any help, Gwen. You have better things to do. And I ran out of time back when I was a kid. I should've been dead in New York, I should've been dead in the Null Void. I'm not even sure how I made it to seventeen, but I shouldn't have even gotten this far._

_Me: You've saved the universe. Destiny laid that out for you._

_Kevin: Well now it's time to join my dad, okay? There are certain things you have to let go of, you know? You're such a control freak._

_Then we got into this big (playful) argument about how much of a control freak I am. And I am not a control freak, for the record._

_The main point of this discussion is that Kevin is ready to leave. I don't think he is. I think he wants to stay. But I can also see it in his dark eyes that he's ready to relinquish his hold on this life, on this reality, so that he can move onto another. And maybe wherever he'll go will be better. Maybe he won't have so many scars, both physical and emotional. Maybe he'll be better on a more spiritual level._

_What really hit home for me was the comment about his dad. I always knew he missed his father more than I could ever understand, but I had never once considered his dying a way to get back to his father. Because that just didn't seem like Kevin. He never struck me as the guy who was willing to give up everything just for… what he… wanted. Okay, well, I lied. He is that kind of guy. He wanted to save the universe so he gave up his sanity. He wanted to be a Plumber so he let go of his criminal ties. He _is_ the sort of guy willing to give up everything to get what he wants._

_But he's even willing to give up me?_

_I'll have to write more tomorrow. Kevin absorbing my skin all day is tiring. Hopefully this is working. In the meantime, I need sleep._

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**A/N: Well, hopefully that was alright. I hate doing that format for the dialogue, but that's how someone would write it as a journal entry, right? Anyways, review!**

**~Sky**


	13. Day Sixteen

**A/N: I'm sicker than a dog. So I'm literally fighting to breathe. I'm pretty sure I know what Kevin feels like now… I know, such a cruel thing to say for this story, but I'm not even kidding you. Anyways, onto the story while I can still write.**

**Disclaimer: I'm not Man Of Action, therefore I do not own Ben 10.**

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_February 9, 2011  
__8:52 P.M._

_Day Sixteen_

_I just pulled another shift with Kevin. His mom's sitting with him now. He's getting tired from being awake all the time. He can't absorb energy just by touching something. He has to physically do work to absorb things. And I'm pretty sure that's not helping him. He really should rest, but then his cells are still mutating and multiplying without the absorption of normal cells and… yeah… It'd just get out of hand again if he went to sleep, but staying awake is making him so exhausted…_

_It's almost funny how many times I've seen him pull an all-nighter with his car and all those times he's sat with me while I crammed for tests until the crack of dawn and all those times he's been driving us around at three in the morning. I don't think I've every seen him truly tired until now._

_He does look miserable and tired, but I know he's still putting up a good fight. Or at least I hope he is. He's attempting, I guess. I can't tell anymore._

_Kevin used to be my open book, my reading material, the thing I thought I knew best in the world; that changed in a heartbeat the second he started pushing me away. He's still my boyfriend, and I can see it in his eyes that he still loves me, but he's not letting me get any closer anymore. He's keeping me at a distance, at arm's length. I can figure why._

_It's probably the same reason he didn't want me to get close to him in the first place. He didn't want to ask me out before because he wasn't totally sure if he was sticking around or not. He was just ready to bail at any moment until he started fawning over me. And once I caught his attention, he stayed. Now that he knows he won't be around, this time the outcome being unavoidable, he's pushing me away again. Just like before._

_Honestly, I get why, but I don't like it. I want to spend as much time with him as possible. He's only got a little bit of time left, and I don't want to waste that time, not if I can help it. So I'm spending all my waking moments with him while he's slowly growing exhausted. I'm pretty sure he'll have to sleep soon or else he'll just pass out. I mean, he's been going at this for… over twenty-eight hours. I'm not sure of the actual count, but I'm figuring it's definitely more than that. Better to have less than more._

_I'm wondering how we'll fix him since I know this isn't going to work. He'll have to sleep eventually, and when he does, his cancer will keep at him until he's nothing. And I don't want that to happen. So we still have to figure out a real cure. This is just a little substitution for the real thing, something to tie him over long enough until we can get real help. The hard part is that we don't even know if there will be any real help. And if there were, what would it be? I've tried magic, we've asked Azmuth (or at least left him a message), and nothing is really working. So if there is a cure for Kevin out there, we want it now more than ever. Our cure is only temporary, but we need a real one fast._

_Anyways, Ben and I are still camping out at Kevin's house. We're dealing with our sleep loss and managing to switch off between sleeping on the couch and on the floor. It's hard because Ben is really losing his temper a lot more. Almost like Kevin would. And Kevin's totally placid, almost all the time. It's ridiculous. It's like my two favorite guys have completely swapped personalities. And I hate it. Not even kidding._

_So… This journal has become practically obsolete. Like, what more can I write? How much we sit with Kevin? How hopeless we are? I mean, we've got a medicine, but a medicine isn't a cure. Just like normal cancer patients have chemo, Kevin's got us. And it's only delaying the inevitable for now. I don't know what we're doing. I just think that we're not getting anywhere. We're doing nothing. We're either helping him by lifting his spirits, or making it worse by prolonging what he knows is coming._

_He's still not coming around to the whole idea of us being able to save him. He still thinks that it's never going to work and that it's hopeless. Kevin's bent on the thought that he's incurable. He's not. I'm sure of it. There's got to be another case like this out there somewhere. I mean, aliens are out there. Why not an Osmosian with cancer?_

_The point is that Kevin's doing better, he still knows he's going down in flames, and Ben and I are at wit's end. His mom's still okay, putting on a brave face each day to look at her dying son with a hopeful smile and hopeful eyes. She really is desperate to keep him with her. I would be too if he was the only living remnant of my dead husband. And Kevin's probably a great kid for her, low maintenance, behaves, and takes care of himself most of the time. He really does seem like a good kid other than the criminal background and such. That's his only flaw, really._

_I'm trying to do some research, trying to keep this journal updated. So far, it's updated pretty decently. I only missed a few days. And we've only got two days 'til day nineteen._

_I'll be honest: I'm scared. I'm afraid that I'm going to lose Kevin. He's so close to being gone forever, no longer in my reach, and yet he's still got that little chance to stay with us. A small, tiny chance… A tiny chance to keep him with me…_

_Part of me thinks that I'm being self-centered. I hate feeling like that because then it's like, "Am I really thinking all about myself and how I want to have him as my boyfriend just so he's my boyfriend and do I really care about him in this issue?" Because I think this is a serious question of my own morals. I know it's right to try and save someone, but he's Kevin. Part of me is saying that I want to keep him by my side forever, but another part thinks that maybe letting him go would help him. He wants to see his dad, I know that. But he's Kevin. Does he really believe in all that afterlife stuff? He's Kevin… And if he does, where would he go after Earth? Up or down?_

_He's done a lot of bad things, but he's repented for them. He's made up for all the bad by saving the universe in self-sacrifice, and it's no question that he's made the world a better place just with a set of metal fists and his street smarts. There are days where Kevin has made the world a dangerous place to be (the universe too), but he's always going to come back to that side of him that knows right and wrong and what he should and shouldn't do. He's Kevin. I have faith in him and so does Ben._

_Which is why we want to keep him around. Because we know he's a hero, not some low life. He's more than just the monster that hijacks his body at times; he's not a monster. That's all in his head. He's a human being just like everyone else. He knows who he is, what he is, what he should do, what he does do. Kevin is just as capable as the rest of us, and he's capable of being a hero. He's a hero. We need him now more than ever. He's holding us together whether he knows it or not._

_And I think he's only sticking around to keep his mom company. The suicide thing… He broke down when he saw her. I think he knows how hard it's going to be on her when she's alone. And I don't think he wants to leave her on her own like that. She's already lost so much. He probably doesn't want to put any more weight on her soul._

_Two days left after today. Maybe more if our medicine is helping him. It's time for my shift again. Ben's crashed on the couch, and Kevin's back in his room with his mom. I have to go let him absorb my skin so that maybe, just maybe, we can buy ourselves more time. All we need is more time… Nineteen days doesn't do us too much… Two days left at the stroke of midnight. Write more tomorrow._

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**A/N: Struggling the whole way. Man, I'm getting close to the end of this… Reviews are awesome. Leave some.**

**~Sky**


	14. Day Eighteen

**A/N: Sorry for the delay on this story. This is the story that I promised I would never write a chapter of on my iTouch because… well… I can't. I don't have the italics thing. But I can't write it at night when I'm supposed to be sleeping and that's why this hasn't been regularly updated. Anyways, let's get on with it!**

**Also, sorry about math problems in the last chapter. I wasn't in the mood to do math, so blame it on Gwen's sleep deprivation. Hopefully, that makes sense. I can't do math before ten in the morning, personally…**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10. At all.**

* * *

_February 11, 2011  
__9:59 P.M._

_Day Eighteen_

_I felt like I had to write today, no matter how tired I am. I've been with Kevin for a full twenty-four hours now. I was asleep half of the time, curled up in his warm arms. He's great, really. People should give him more credit. He may be a bad boy, but he's such a great guy that he deserves some more respect._

_So it's day eighteen. Lot of stuff going on. Tomorrow, we see if we've managed to stop the cancer enough. If we did, good for us, we get to keep Kevin, even if only for a little bit longer. If we didn't… well… I don't want to talk about it._

_But I was in there with him for at least thirty hours, which is why I didn't get to write yesterday. I was sleeping most of yesterday morning and then I was with Kevin for the whole afternoon and then all night... And all of today as well… I'm a busy girl, sorry. Don't get to write a whole lot anymore. I've got a dying boyfriend to take care of._

_But it's pretty much ten o' clock at night and I'm ready to crash and burn on the couch. Ben's in with Kevin right now. They're doing a comic book swap thing, whatever. I'll let the guys have their guy time._

_So I'm working feverishly to try and study everything that we know, everything that could possibly help. I'm just trying to gather information to compile it all and give it to Azmuth so that maybe he knows what we could do to fix Kevin… Ben and I can only do so much…_

_I'm almost wondering if we could hack the Ultimatrix like we did the Omnitrix and screw up his DNA again. Maybe that would stop the cancer. Cells need DNA to divide, right? The only problem is that I don't know if we could pull it off again without running the risk of having him be severely mutated again. I know that would kill him inside even if it saved him on the outside. So we probably can't do that. I doubt it'd work anyways._

_What else can we do? We're defenseless. After all the chances we gave him, after all the work we put into trying to fix him and make him right again, we're still going to lose him. Or at least we will if we don't stay focused and do what we can._

_The only problem that we're seeing with Kevin absorbing our skin is that he's only being covered on the outside. It's the way his armor works. Or at least that's what he tells us. It probably won't fix him or anything, but we're only hoping for a delay until we can find someone who can really help us. We know we can't do this alone. It just won't work unless we have more help._

_Then there's the problem that he's only awake for a few hours now. Using his powers so much drains him just as much as it drains us. It feels like he's taking our energy when he's absorbing us. That's what scares me a bit. Him absorbing energy instead of cells. But he knows what he's doing. I hope._

_Today, I was with him all day and we were just talking, me curled up in his warm arms as one of his hands remained permanently planted on my arm so he could keep up the absorbing. We just sat there most of the day, talking, hanging out, just like normal teens would do. The only difference was that we were talking about aliens and fighting styles and such. It was normal for us, but it would be strange for anyone watching or listening in. It's natural for Kevin and I. Not natural for other people._

_Maybe that's what makes us special. Because we're so different but so the same. We know the exact same things as normal teenagers. We know how things are in high school (or at least I do) and then you mix in the fear of dying because of aliens and the problems of knowing you're not human, not like everyone else. It's a bit more stressful. But life's good. I think we're happy other than the fact that Kevin's dying._

_I'm scared about tomorrow. I don't know if we saved him or not. I don't know if we slowed down the cancer. I'm not sure what's going on. I'm being pulled in like twenty different directions and I don't now where to go. I'm scared for him. He's the only person I'll ever love and if he's gone… I don't want to lose him, but that makes me feel selfish and then… Yeah. I'm so torn._

_But I almost want to let him go just so he doesn't suffer anymore. If he stays, he'll be hurt more. He'll lose his mind again, we all know it. And he's always going to be hurting for something. He's almost like a little kid sometimes, innocent and wide-eyed, always afraid of losing something and fearful of a certain kind of darkness. He didn't deserve to die, but he did deserve to be at peace._

_I don't want to lose him. He's still young and still has so much to do, but he's ready to get on with things, ready to relax for good. He's so sweet, but now he needs to just… just be done._

_And I love him. But if he isn't there in the morning, I don't think I'll be as angry or as sad. Because I know he'll probably be going to a better place, a place where he can relax, a place where he doesn't have to worry about anything._

_Then there's the fact that I've seen him get hurt a billion times before. If he is gone, he won't get hurt. He won't be able to die a slow, painful death. It'll just be the blink of an eye and then he'll be safe forever._

_Write again tomorrow._

* * *

**A/N: Kind of just distracted throughout this, but I tried. Anyways, night everyone and leave a review!**

**~Sky**


	15. Day Nineteen

**A/N: Easily the least impressive of all my works. This chapter will suck, but I know exactly how I want it written. Sorry that it's this way, but it just feels right to make it like this.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10. Or the song I'm listening to. LOVE THIRD EYE BLIND!**

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__3:54 A.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_Today, I'm going to write everything. I can't spend all day on my laptop though, so I'll have to do excerpts to the journal here and there and such. It's three in the morning and we're all wide awake. Except for Kevin. We're letting him sleep for a few hours. That's all he's really been doing lately. An hour here, a nap there, some shut-eye while it's still dark outside. That's all we've been letting him get._

_He looks like crap. I hate to put it that way, but he really does. Dark circles are pretty much permanently imprinted underneath his eyes and he's paler than normal. And Kevin's pale to begin with. He's not even caring anymore. It's almost as if he's going through the motions, caught on a knife-thin line between life and death._

_We're going to wake him up in a few hours. The goal is to keep him up all day. Because today's the day he's supposed to die. And we don't want that to happen._

_Ben's still trying to bust the Ultimatrix. So far, no luck. But it's Ben. I trust him. Sort of._

_We're all kind of in panic mode. What if he does die? What if he doesn't? What'll we do? How do we keep Kevin alive until we can get Azmuth's attention? Combined, it all looks like such a daunting task…I'm really glad Ben's helping as much as he is. It's so… un-Ben-like. But I appreciate it. If he ever reads this, I want him to know that I love him and that he's the best cousin a girl could wish for._

_And if Kevin lives through this, I want him to read it and know that this is how much I love him. There's nothing else I can say. He's my whole world. I love him._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__7:11 A.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_We just woke Kevin up. He's camping out on the couch with Ben while they watch the Saturday morning cartoons. It's like a scene out of a movie. For once, they aren't making any biting remarks at each other. For once, they don't want to fight. And for once, it's actually peaceful._

_I hope I'll be able to see it again next Saturday morning._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__8:09 A.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_It's really quiet here. Kevin's mom is at work. She doesn't want to be at work, but she couldn't call in sick or anything. She already took so many personal days when they found out he had cancer. But now she's out of personal days and no one's going to believe that her son's an alien hybrid who is supposed to die today. I wouldn't believe it either if I weren't living it._

_Kevin's got cereal. I never noticed before how cute he looks while eating Cheerios. At least he's eating Cheerios. It's got "cheer" in the name. Maybe he won't give up. But he's still cute eating cereal._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__10:01 A.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_It feels like today is going to last forever. I mean, I'm just sitting around and watching Kevin. When I'm not typing something up, he's absorbing my skin. When he's not absorbing my skin, he's absorbing Ben's. And we don't know how things are doing for him. He doesn't talk much anymore. I hate it, but we can't do anything about it. We're not going to force him to talk. Maybe it hurts to talk. I don't know. His thyroid could be bothering his vocal chords. The possibilities are endless. I just want him to be alright again. I want Kevin back._

_This is a ghost. It isn't Kevin._

_I just want my boyfriend back._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__12:31 A.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_I'm not sure what to mark the time stamp on this one. A.M. or P.M. Because it could be either. I was just kind of thinking that it was A.M. I don't know. I'm babbling._

_Lunch is sandwiches. Kevin's mom called on her lunch break to check on Kevin. He talked to her for a little bit, his voice raspy and hoarse. He's really not doing so good. I don't want to lose him. But we've already gotten through half the day. It's already noon and things are going pretty well. Kevin's coughing again, but we already know he's still getting sick. I mean, our help can only do so much._

_Ben just got butter all over the floor. I think he's trying to make grilled cheese, but I have no idea. Kevin's curled up against me. He's watching tv, but I can kind of tell that he wants to read over my shoulder. He doesn't. He's sweet like that. But I'm getting so tired. He's also absorbing me while Ben makes a (lame) attempt at making food. Clearly, a woman should be in the kitchen. But I'm also trying to write a journal entry here. To save all other Osmosians out there who may have cancer._

_Yeah, what are the odds of that?_

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__1:10 P.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_We just got a response back from Azmuth. He's coming. He'll be here in five days. Originally, he said a week, but when we told him the severity of the circumstances, he agreed to cut through a pocket dimension that could get him here faster. Not much faster, but fast enough._

_And let's just say he was a little pissed at us._

_Normally, he's pissed at Ben. That's nothing new. But when Ben answered the incoming call on the Ultimatrix and Azmuth came up with his angry face on and his little fists clenched, I had to work some magic. The thing is, who else would be answering a call on the Ultimatrix? What right does he have to fume at Ben? A lot, but sheesh, Ben's not the only one who's going to need help. He should know this._

_When we told him Kevin was sick, he considered it with a little scoff. When we told him Kevin had cancer, he took a little bit more interest._

_Even he wanted to be the one to cure cancer. I still want to cure it too, but we won't get what we need for years now. Maybe in the future, I _will _be the one to discover the cure, but by then, it'll be too late. Kevin doesn't have that long. At this point, we can only hope for Azmuth to get here and save him._

_The thought of losing Kevin… It scares me._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__4:36 P.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_So far, so good._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__6:05 P.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_We're still doing alright. Kevin's breathing normally and all. He's doing fine for now. I'm just afraid that he'll choke again and we won't be able to get him back. It'd be all of my worst nightmares coming true. Still, we're doing alright. Ben's going to start making dinner in a bit, but if it goes over like lunch did, I may end up calling Burger Shack for a delivery. Just saying._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__9:20 P.M._

_Day Nineteen_

_It's exhausting to keep an eye on Kevin and manage to keep Ben from killing himself with the Ultimatrix. The thing with Rath? When he tried to rip the symbol off his chest? Yeah, that happened again, but without the whole "Rath" part of it. Kind of dangerous. Of course, Kevin was cracking up through wheezing breaths. It _was _funny…But still, we're looking better and better. I think we'll make it past day nineteen._

* * *

_February 12, 2011  
__11:57 P.M._

_He's still alive. Asleep, but alive. Three more minutes to go._

_He looks tired. And in pain. His breathing is still raspy and his eyes are still dark. Honestly, I feel like there's a haze over him, a fog that won't lift. I don't know if he's still fighting or not, but I really hope he is._

_One more minute._

_We're looking at the future and I'm thinking that this will never work. There's no way Azmuth'll get here and save Kevin in time. It's just not possible. I want to hope and pray and wish, which is what I have been doing, but the clock is ticking and eventually, it'll stop. Azmuth is our last hope._

_It's midnight._

_Kevin survived day nineteen._

_Now I just have to hope he survives tomorrow._

* * *

**A/N: For those of you who read this the way it's intended to be read, dates and all, you may notice something. Look carefully… Sorry, I just like playing with the subtle details. Reviews are awesome! Thanks for reading!**

**~Sky**


	16. Day Twenty

**A/N: Another chapter! I'm sorry. I just hate how hard this is to write without being repetitive.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

* * *

_February 13, 2011_  
_3:55 A.M._

_Day Twenty_

_It's going to be just like yesterday. Sporadic updates, short entries. I'm sorry. We're just watching him so carefully._

_I got a little under four hours of sleep last night. Kevin's mom stayed with him while I caught a few winks and Ben tried to bust the Ultimatrix._

_We're toying with the thought of taking Lodestar and finding some kind of radioactive… thing that could have radioactivity projected with magnetic waves and-_

_I sound crazy. Ignore me._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__5: 42 A.M._

_Day Twenty_

_He's still sleeping. We're waking him up in a few hours._

_At least he's still breathing._

_I'm going to make myself some breakfast._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__7:09 A.M._

_Day Twenty_

_I have this crick in my neck and it's not going away._

_Kevin's awake now. He's messing around on Facebook right now. I think he's taking care of his farm or something. I don't know. I just use Facebook to keep my friends updated. The games are just there._

_Anyways!_

_We're hanging out. He's letting me sit in his lap with my book while he watches over my shoulder to play his little computer games and he lets me snuggle into his chest and he's just really, really quiet. But it's peaceful. It's really, really peaceful._

_I'm on my laptop now, obviously, but before he would kiss my forehead and twine his fingers into my hair…_

_I don't want to lose him._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__9:11 A.M._

_Day Twenty_

_Sumo Slammers is melting their brains, I swear._

_Kevin's coughing a little bit more than he did yesterday, but he's still absorbing skin._

_I thought of a side effect of this skin absorbing stuff. What if he's absorbing the wrong DNA? Like, what if this is messing up his DNA even more? He's already got cancer. I really hope we're not making it worse…_

_Azmuth is still three days out. Kevin just needs to hold out for us. Three more days._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__10:24 A.M._

_Day Twenty_

_It's only a little before noon and I'm already freaking out._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__1:56 P.M._

_Day Twenty_

_So we made it past noon. Kevin's still doing good. We're making a late lunch. He found a bag of popcorn chicken in the freezer and hauled that out before dropping a few little bite-sized hunks on a plate that looked like it was meant for a five-year-old's meal at a casual restaurant. He looks like he's enjoying it._

_Now he's putting it in the microwave (or as Ben likes to call it, the machowave) and pressing some buttons. I love him, have I said that lately?_

_And he's just standing there with his arms folded across his chest with the whirring of the microwave in the background and he just said, "I'm makin' poppin' chicken."_

_Just the way he says things can make anyone smile, I'm convinced._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__3:08 P.M._

_Day Twenty_

_He's coughing again._

_God, I'm so scared we're going to lose him._

_Three more days until Azmuth gets here. Just three more days._

_Hold on, Kevin._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__6:34 P.M._

_Day Twenty_

_More Sumo Slammers. I think my brain's going to pour out of my ears._

_And Kevin's just sitting there absorbing Ben's skin, watching the tv like he actually cares. We all know he doesn't. But he's putting forth the effort to show that he wants to live again. I get to take care of him later. He's mine for most of the night. His mom's doing a night shift because she has to make up for all her personal days. It's awful._

_She's home for the moment, snagging some dinner and making Kevin a sandwich because she knows how much he loves sandwiches._

_I can't imagine living without Kevin._

* * *

_February 13, 2011  
__11:59 P.M._

_Day Twenty_

_I just spent the last five hours with Kevin._

_We sat in his bed, me curled up in his arms while he absorbed my skin, him playing with my hair and running his calloused hands across my skin as we just lay there, two souls intertwined, two people destined for each other._

_And I have to give up my reign at midnight. Ben's taking his shift while Kevin's asleep._

_And you can just tell that Kevin hates this. He hates being watched in his sleep, being followed and treated like a child; he hates this life. But he knows he can't let us down. That's the only reason he's still fighting. For us. Because we don't want to lose him. Not yet. He's still so important to us._

_It's a minute past midnight. Ben's coming in right now. Kevin's still sound asleep. My typing isn't waking him up any time soon._

_Time for me to get my sleep._

_I don't want to lose him._

* * *

**A/N: So, are we going to leave a review? Yes! Now please do and thanks for reading!**

**~Sky**


	17. Day Twentyfive

**A/N: I promised I would write this.**

**Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own.**

* * *

_February 18, 2011_  
_6:25 P.M._

_Day Twenty-five_

_I haven't been writing because there was nothing to write about. We lost Kevin._

_Ben was in there. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on him. He was supposed to be._

_I don't blame Ben. You can't stop cancer._

_Day Twenty-one. Somewhere between two A.M. and five A.M._

_It feels… empty without him here. I'm still living under his roof with his mourning mother and Ben's leaving today. I don't want to leave yet._

_It's cold and lonely. I mean, I feel dead inside. I lost the guy I loved._

_Azmuth came today. He reminded me that I had to write. He was too late._

_I'm so mad. Why couldn't he have come sooner?_

_Everything hurts. Looking at the house. Looking at all my past entries. Looking at everything. I can't be numb to it. I miss him so much. I want him back. Right now._

_But I can't have him back._

_So I don't know what I'm going to do._

_I have to go back to school. I have to get my grades back up. I have to keep focusing._

_But I don't want to move on._

_I want Kevin back._

_I wish I were numb. I wish I could have him back. I just… I don't want to accept that this is the truth._

_I'm not sure where everything's going to go from here. Ben and I are down a teammate and Kevin was a huge help even if he didn't show it. He did everything that Ben and I couldn't do. Weapons, driving, diving in headfirst…_

_Why did he have to die?_

_Everything is in slow motion. I feel sick to my stomach when I look at his mom and how her face is stained with tears._

_I don't want to do this. Why do I have to live without him?_

_Ben must be moving on. I know he was a bit more detached than I was, but he still cared._

_We're both miserable. He trusted us with his life so many times… So many times… And the one time we fail… the one ti_

* * *

_February 18, 2011  
__9:53 P.M._

_Day Twenty-five_

_I can't do this._

_I can't live without him._

_It hurts too much._

_I cried for a whole day. Is that normal?_

_No one's ever died before. I've never seen anyone die, never been so close. I mean, I guess Grandpa was the exception; but he wasn't dead. And Magister Labrid. But he was a fish. I don't know where that stands._

_We promised to take care of him._

_We did._

_And he went and died on us._

_Maybe he's happier. He's probably with his dad. He's not in pain. He's not afraid. He's at peace with himself. That has to stand for something. I hope. Maybe. I'm not sure. I wish I knew. I wish I could ask him._

_Why Kevin?_

_Why?_

_Why not me?_

_Why not Ben?_

_Why?_

_And why am I not numb? Why does this have to hurt so bad?_

_I can't help but look at his room and think how I want to go in there and find myself in his warm arms and just whisper in his ear how much I love him._

_But he isn't there._

_He isn't here._

_He's dead._

_Why Kevin?_

* * *

**A/N: Yes, one last chapter after this. It's hard to write now... Review?**

**~Sky**


	18. Day Thirtyone

**A/N: Argh, I really didn't want to write this chapter because I'm not sure what all I want to put in it, but I have to, I guess. Rule of promises, ya know?**

**Sidenote: For those of you loyal readers, anyone pick anything up on the time stamps? Not just the dates, but the times. Go look back and you'll see what I was playing with.**

**Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own.**

* * *

_February 24, 2011  
__2:32 P.M._

_Day Thirty-one_

_So I guess I have to wrap up my journal here._

_Azmuth doesn't know how to cure cancer, let alone Osmosian cancer. So even if he had gotten here on time, Kevin still wouldn't have made it. Sad fact of life, but everything's been said and done. We can't change the past, can we?_

_The funeral is in a week. His mom's getting a month off of work to cope. I'm getting two weeks off of school and counseling. Yay. Ben's already got passes off campus for whenever he wants, so he doesn't have much to worry about._

_I just hope Kevin's happy. I hope he's with his dad. I hope he's not hurting. I hope he's alright._

_I think I'll be okay after a few months, maybe a year or so. I mean, I miss him, but it was probably for the best._

_He doesn't have to sacrifice himself anymore. There's no peer pressure for him to deal with. There aren't any more people out to get him. He's at peace, I hope. _

_Ben and I are just going to have to move on… Me emotionally, him physically._

_Kevin was his best friend. It hurts to think that Ben never had really close friends before Kevin came along. And then, an angel came and gave him a best friend. It just took some compromise and some faithlessness to bring out the best in them._

_And me… I'll just survive. That's what I've been doing all along, right? Surviving._

_As long as he's happy, I have to be happy. I have to. For him. Because I know he would never want to see me sad. That was his thing. He would always wipe away my tears. He would try to turn my frown upside-down. And I mean it literally, he would say that. He's weird, but it's what makes him special. Made him special._

_It's just hard to think that he's really gone…_

_He isn't gone. In that spiritual way. I know it sounds cheesy, but he's in our hearts and our memories will help him live on. Share his story and turn others the way we turned him, bad to good. I think he'd like that._

_I love him. Still. I don't think I'll be able to love anyone as much as I love him, but I'll have to move on._

_It's what he'd want._

_He's happy. Maybe. Hopefully._

_As long as he's happy, I shouldn't be complaining. I have to be happy. For him. So he won't be sad for me._

_Part of me wishes he would've read this. So he would know how much I really do care._

_I didn't cure cancer. And I didn't save Kevin. And in the grand scheme of things, we really didn't get anything accomplished. Cancer just doesn't take pity. It doesn't choose its victims. It's the luck of the draw. And maybe it's only right that Kevin was taken out of his misery._

_At least he died in his sleep._

_I just miss him. So much._

_But I have to be happy. I have to. For him. Because I love him. And I need to be happy._

_I have to be happy._

_Even though it hurts._

* * *

_February 24, 2011  
__6:23 P.M._

_Day Thirty-one_

_So Grandpa Max is taking care of everything on the Plumber side of things. He's organizing everything. There's a medal that's going to be in Kevin's honor. It'll be given out annually at Plumber Academy._

_Everything still seems a little out of focus for me. Kevin's got a medal in his name. That's so… strange._

_He's gone. He's not coming back. I know this. I love him. I miss him. I want him back._

_I'm a little numb still, but I have to be happy. I'm moving on. I'm going to school again. I mean, I have to go back to school. I have to. I have to stay in school. Kevin would want me to be in school. Kevin knows what's good for me._

_He was always watching out for me. Always._

_And his mom's doing okay. She's still just going through the motions of living. We all are, really. Azmuth is still hanging around Ben's house._

_Everything just went by so fast… It hurts to think that he's really gone…_

_Be happy. Smile. Be happy. For Kevin._

_I love him. I miss him._

_But I still need to live._

* * *

_February 24, 2011  
__11:11 P.M._

_Day Thirty-one_

_I wish for Kevin to be happy._

_Goodbye, Kevin._

* * *

**A/N: Fin.**

**~Sky**


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